April 16, 2011

The Anglican Alliance's inaugural assembly ended in Nairobi with a consensus on the way forward in development, advocacy and relief. The key development priorities proposed by the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa (CAPA) and agreed by the assembly were:

• Economic empowerment, with support for micro-finance, including working on a roadmap towards an Anglican bank. (The conference heard powerful presentations on micro-finance from Peterson Kamau of Five Talents, the church's micro-finance institution, and Moses Ochieng of the CGAP consortium of donors and development agencies.)

• Peace and reconciliation, learning from the experience of the church in countries affected by conflict.

• Governance The conference included participants from African provinces, South America, the Caribbean, South and South East Asia, the Pacific, Canada and Australia. Included among these were representatives from the Primate's World Relief and Development Fund and AngliCORD. They provided valuable guidance and insights on the role of church-based development agencies.

In inspirational presentations on Friday morning, participants from Haiti, Pakistan and Kenya described how the church had responded to disaster emergencies in the countries. Their messages and experience guided discussions on a strategy for a communion-wide response to disasters. The strategy will be considered at a future regional consultation.

There was also consensus around the way forward for advocacy: being a voice for the voiceless, or the church's prophetic mission. Economic empowerment, food security and financing of basic services were identified as the three most important areas for advocacy during the coming year, with climate change identified for 2012. South America has volunteered to host the next consultation, in October 2011, with the Pacific and South and South East Asia discussing within their regions options for consultations between September and December 2011. The assembly concluded with a moving open air act of worship, with participants from Canada, South Africa, Hong Kong and Uruguay leading prayers for people in the north, south, east and west of the world.

Anglican Communion News Service, London